Where It Counts
by Mlle Lambert
Summary: Castle nearly gets himself shot on a case, and an interesting conversation with Beckett ensues. Future Fic, One-shot.


_**Title:**__ Where It Counts_

_**Disclaimer:**__ Whoever owns them owns them! If I did, I'd be writing the scripts, not the fanfic!_

_**Author's Note:**__ Okay, so I've been playing with this for a while and I've finally gotten it about as close as I can to the characters. Castle nearly gets himself shot, and an interesting conversation ensues._

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One thing was for sure: this had been a long, hard case. Beckett, Castle, Esposito, and Ryan entered the bull pen as they quietly celebrated among themselves another victory for the good guys, as always. It was one of those moments Rick never thought he would get enough of—good triumphing over evil, the bad guys put away for good, the—

"Castle, can I talk to you for a minute?" Beckett asked calmly, but something about her demeanor immediately signaled Esposito and Ryan to hang back.

This was not good, Castle thought, but he nodded anyway. "Of course." Anything for her.

She led him into a free conference room and closed the door. This was so not good. When she locked that very same door, it graduated from not good to bad. Then came the blinds. Oh, he was in trouble. Big trouble, and for once, he couldn't even pretend not to know why. When she turned around, green eyes looking directly into his and a slight color staining her cheeks, he braced himself for the onslaught.

"What were you _thinking_, Castle?" Beckett's raised voice still made him wince slightly. "Oh, wait, stupid question. You didn't, did you?"

"You know me..." he began halfheartedly.

"That's exactly right, Castle. I _do_ know you." Her eyes flashed in anger before she looked away, bringing a hand to her forehead before starting up again. "Charging into a firefight without regard to your own life. You could have been _killed_ today. Don't you know what that means?" She continued on with her rant for who knows how long before he held up a hand, effectively stopping her. She glared at him sharply.

Rick sighed at her reaction. "As undeniably sexy as this is, just let me ask you something. How long have we been working together, Kate?"

"What?" she asked, his question obviously throwing her off a bit. "That has nothing to do with this."

He stepped closer. "Yes, it does, and you know why? Because you should know by now that I don't follow directions very well, and sure, maybe it's because I find your irritation sort of cute, but that doesn't mean I would intentionally put myself into serious danger unless there was a damn good reason." _Like protecting you._ The words hung in the air between them before he quickly recovered. "I'm just...too pretty...to die..." he deadpanned.

Making her way to the table and leaning against it, Beckett raised an eyebrow, still coming down from the initial adrenaline of being angry with him. "You're right, you know," she paused long enough for him to entertain the idea that she meant he was "pretty," but her next words shot that one right out of the sky. "We have seen a lot of cases together, and despite the fact that a good portion of the time, I would very much like to shoot you, I do know you. And even though I had my doubts at the beginning, I've come to realize that beneath that attitude of yours, you're..."

A slight smirk crept onto his face as he stepped closer still until he was easily within an arm's reach of her. "I'm...what?"

She sighed, looked away and then directly into his playful blue eyes. Her heart skipped a beat. "You're a good man, Castle," she said after a long while. "You know, where it counts." She tore her gaze away, placing a hand on his chest. "Right here."

He looked down at her hand, so tentatively touching his body, for once in his life at a loss for words. All of his life, he'd heard about moments where words just couldn't portray the proper emotions—hell, he'd written about them—but he'd really only experienced a few in his lifetime. Rarely had a situation presented itself where words just failed, but this... This was one of them. His hand brushed up her forearm to clasp her fingers gently, and when he looked back up, her eyes were already on him. "You really mean that," he said in wonder.

A smile turned up the corners of her mouth as she nodded. "You know, it's really not like you to state the obvious like that." It was true. Usually he would work something in on the spot just to pull her pigtails. Sometimes she wondered if he had a list of good comebacks already formulated or if he just made it up as he went along. After a moment's silence, she decided to move on from the observation. There were more important things to discuss, and while she was being honest... "You scared me today, Rick. Watching that guy go for you like that...I just-"

His finger came up to her lips and just as quickly dropped, trailing down her neck as it went. Before she could say anything more, his gaze had her pinned. Their lips met slowly, causing a tingle to spread across her body as he stepped even closer, his free hand coming up to cup the back of her head. It wasn't until her arms came up to snake around his neck that the kiss became more heated. He traced his tongue along her lips before she parted them, allowing entrance. All she could hear was the sound of their breathing and the pounding of her blood in her ears.

A knock sounded on the door. Castle flinched, breaking their kiss, looking just as breathless as she felt. "Hey, Beckett, everything okay in there?" came a voice from the other side of the door.

She closed her eyes, smiling. "Yeah, Esposito. I'll be right out," she said toward the door. Then those green eyes were back on him.

He moved then, stepping away and dropping his hands in what seemed like a casual manner except for the way they moved along her sides and momentarily rested on her hips before he broke contact completely. A flash of humor lit his eyes as he said nonchalantly, "Well, I guess you made your point. Won't happen again."

Kate cleared her throat, straightening her shirt self-consciously, and trying to seem just as nonchalant. "I hope not, because if it does, and it doesn't kill you, I might just do the honors myself."

He narrowed his eyes, that little smirk of his returning, but he surprisingly said nothing. With a smirk of her own, Beckett stepped close enough that their bodies were almost touching, put her hand on his shoulder, and watched his pupils dilate in reaction. She leaned in to his ear and added in a sultry whisper, "And if you tell _anyone_ about what just happened, getting shot will be the least of your worries."

And then she left, leaving him to wonder exactly _what_ had just happened.

fin

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_Yeah, couldn't resist putting in the Firefly reference, but anyway, let me know what you think! Please R&R!_


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